The Wilmington Morning Star

By ROBERT EUNSON (Substituting for Kenneth L. Dixon)

HILDESHEIM, Germany, April 19.-(Delayed)-(AP)-American soldiers who have been prisoners in lice-infested Nazi stalags in the Ninth Army sector are being flown from the captured Luftwaffe field here, 3,000 to 5,000 a day.

There is a smile on every thin, sallow face. They know their next stop will be a port in France, where they will board an ocean liner for furloughs at home in the United States.

Each of Lt. Gen. William H. Simpson's Divisions overran prisoner of war camps between the Rhine and the Elbe, liberating about 200,000 Americans, British, Poles, Russians, French, Italians and soldiers from the Balkans.

Each division brings here the prisoners it has liberated. They then are turned over to a Ninth Army artillery unit headed by Lt. Col. William Hughes, of Georgiana, Ala.

The men are assigned billets for sleeping in the former Luftwaffe barracks, but before they go to their rooms each gets a good shower and is de-loused.

A hospital across the field tends the sick or wounded. True, it is a tent hospital, but it is staffed with capable and friendly American doctors and nurses.

Awaiting pickup by the Eighth Air Force troop carrier C-47's, they have little to do but sit and soak up the sun, or sweat out the coffee line-never much more or much less than 100 yards long.

The prisoners are organized into groups of 25 to await their turn for the plane ride out. Idly they watch the skies as C-47's circle the field, wondering if each is the ship for which he waits.

Their uniforms are tattered and dirty with grease and mud. Some bear the black stains of blood. Some of these men can get around only with the aid of crutches or canes.

Their eyes are dull and their shoulders droop when they walk, but when their turn comes up to board the plane, or the turn of someone nearby, every face lights up and there's a glow everywhere that comes only from that warm inner feeling when you're going home.

They get three issues of 'K' rations a day, but after 18 months in a German prisoner of war camp 'K' rations can seem delicious, Cpl. William O'Conner (36716719) of 1722 West Monroe St., Chicago, has discovered. He was captured in Italy a year ago when the Germans took almost the whole first ranger battalion, but right now he is helping pretty 'Jimmie' Broughton, a Red Cross girl from Newark, Ohio, make doughnuts.

'Louise wasn't used to cooking for more than a few girls in the clubmobile unit,' said Sara Morgan, 67 Broadway, Youngstown, Ohio, who heads the Red Cross work here. She introduced Marlice England, 218 South Sixth street, East Missoula, Mont., who said the clubmobile had turned out 50,000 doughnuts in five days and 1,229 gallons of coffee in one day.

'The men get cigarettes and chewing gum, too,' said Elizabeth Hansard, Eldorado, Ark., pausing just long enough from pouring coffee to make the statement.

The Red Cross girls were on the job quickly, giving aid to these men whose need was so great.

Louise Innis of Longwood street, Baltimore, took one look at the first of these thin and hungry former prisoners of war when her clubmobile unit arrived on the scene, then rolled up her sleeves and went to work. Somewhere she scrounged the materials to make soup, and fed 50 men her first day on the job, April 15. The second day she fed 500, and the next, nearly 1,000.